sometimes i just want to draw all day...

Coldplay - Strawberry Swing (Official HD Video) from swashbuckley on Vimeo.

i am thankful...

on nov. 5th, i tweeted (usage?) a pic of my cat lying down on my incomplete drawing of a tree.

i was drawing the tree for a crafty thanksgiving project at paloma's request. after the tree drawing was finished, i made umpteen gazillion leaves in fall colors. and for the past few weeks, we've been writing down what we are thankful for on the leaves and taping them onto the tree:



following is the random list of what we are thankful for (insert my commentary):

paloma:
G*d
love
our new house
the porkchop
the sea
school
grandma and lola (filipino grandmother)
daddy
mommy
hair (?!)
stella and bailey (our cats)
me (as in paloma, not me, as in mamazilla)
the moon
friends
family
earth
fire and warmth
thanksgiving
halloween
tv
hello kitty (wtf!!??)


porkchop:
all my friends at school
ms. suzen (his teacher)
my bed
everything
train DVDs
grandma
trains
my brown blankie
cars and trucks
airplanes
my brown stripe puppy (who isn't striped actually & changes gender daily)

mamazilla:
dreams
the love of family
the porkchop
the paloma
the thin man
chocolate
alcohol
indoor plumbing

(i would've wrote down more, but hello - i am a stay at home mom... i'm only rationed off a few minutes to utilize the indoor plumbing.)

the thin man:
well, he didn't write anything down.... not that he's not thankful for anything... he's just "above" all the crafty balderdash and gobbeldygook... and he has this irrational and paralyzing fear that if he so much as looks into a disembodied googley eye or slightly brushes by a fuzzy pipecleaner - he will be forever emasculated and/or possibly gelded by some unseen mystical crafting force.

happy, happy thanksgiving from our house to yours! :)

shedding the cocoon

yesterday afternoon, i finally got the strength to do something i've been putting off for a while now.... i gave the bassinet away. :(

i remember waddling into the sears to buy it just a week or two before the paloma was born. the thin man picked it up and brought it upstairs. and as usual, i put it together. :)

i have so many fond memories of putting a sleeping paloma into it:



...and taking a screaming paloma out of it. no, i didn't forget.

it held porkchop for a little while, but we caved and let him sleep with us until he transitioned to the crib. six years later, the paloma was using it to play pretend mommy with her triplet, fraternal, multiracial baby dolls.



now, in the reality of the new (and much smaller) apartment, i was finally ready to give the bassinet to a family who could make new memories with it.

jeez. what's next? :')

national adoption day

i have so many friends who have adopted children and enriched their already full lives.... and a handful of friends who were adopted as children into wonderful families... thinking of all of them on national adoption day. :)


Find more videos like this on National Adoption Day

giraffe-a-lama-ding-dong!

a little over a month ago, the paloma came home with an assignment (an "orbital study") to study a subject - any subject of her choice, write a report and create an exhibit to present to the class...

so, the paloma decides to study: giraffes... *sigh*

i know, they're cute, graceful, wonders of nature... blah, blah, blah...




we had four weeks to research, which we did - online and at the library. we knew anything and everything about the giraffe. and yet, i procrastinated helping her when it came to actually writing everything down and creating the presentation...

honestly, the paloma is something of a crab when it comes to homework in general... sometimes it's a downright wrestling match. so, just imagining what it would be like, getting her through writing a one page report, just stopped me in my tracks.

then, i couldn't get inspired to help her with a presentation because i just wasn't all that jazzed about the subject matter.

so, i punted. and ordered pizza.

and after inhaling some cheesy goodness, found inspiration inside the pizza box as well.

it looked like a little stage to me... a little stage that could be dressed to look like africa... with some giraffes... and a little pond.... maybe an acacia tree? i started by pitching the idea to paloma - that we could make little origami giraffes. she jumped at the challenge. :) btw - check out this GINORMUS origami giraffe.



we got paper and started making giraffes... we practiced first - about 20 times... then, paloma made five yellow giraffes for her project - two parents and three babies. she added in the spots with brown pencil.



i cut out a pond shape into the bottom of the pizza box and taped some aluminum foil into it:

paloma painted in the grass and the sky...



paloma made a cloud out of construction paper and wrote "giraffes in africa" on it. and failing to find origami instructions for an acacia tree - i ended up cutting one out of poster board. with an exacto knife. for like hours...

the sun is an AWESOME 8 point origami star (found at foldsomething.com) - you really need to make this one... or at least watch the video - so fun and easy! paloma made the one in the project.



here is the finished project. we added in a couple of "hands on" teaching tools: the navy blue fabric you see is a "giraffe tongue". we found out the color, length and width of an actual tongue and i sewed one up out of some extra fleece i had lying about. second, a giraffe hoof is the size of a dinner plate. so, i used a dinner plate as a guide and made a "hoof". the kids loved seeing how long the tongue was and compared their teeny feet to the plate. paloma got 30 points out of a possible 30 points. :)

UPDATE 11/27/09: i just sent a picture of paloma's giraffes to onemilliongiraffes. and it was posted! if you or your child have made giraffes - please help this collector reach the goal and send them in! :)

special thanks to bloggo chicago for the heads up! :)

sailed off thru night and day, in and out of weeks...

have shipwrecked on beach. discovered wild things.
shoes are wet. otherwise, am ok. little scared... but ok.


"I took my lucky break and I broke it in two.
Put on my worried shoes, my worried shoes.

Took me so many miles, and they never wore out.
My worried shoes. My worried shoes.

oo oo oo oooooo oooooo, my worried shoes.

I made a mistake that I never forgot.
Tied knots in the laces of my worried shoes.

Every step that I take is another mistake.
I march further and further away in my worried shoes.

oo oo oo oooooo oooooo, my worried shoes.

My shoes took me down a crooked path.
Away from our welcome mats, my worried shoes.

I looked all around and saw the sun shining down.
Took off my worried shoes, my worried shoes.

oo oo oo ooooo oooooo, oo oo oo ooooo oooooo, my worried shoes."